I’m just learning how to edit some compelling posts with this new feature. At first I thought all the classics would have great (read: head knocker) one star reviews, but that wasn’t the case with Casablanca. There were no reviews composed on planet I’m-On-My-Meds-I-Really-Am.
Here’s a more controversial film, Raging Bull. Now that has to have interesting scribblers dropping opinions:
Martin Scorsese isn’t a bad fellow, and he has a lot of talent, no doubt, but his influence on young American moviemakers has been entirely negative. The galloping illiteracy of this film, the first of Scorsese’s f-word festivals, has infected dozens of other directors and screenwriters, and has even spread to television, where we see a sewage backup like “The Sopranos” being acclaimed by many who should know better. The screenplay of “Raging Bull” is shot through with inaccuracies, and nobody who remembers Jake LaMotta performing on “Car 54 Where Are You” is going to accept him as a tragic figure. The real tragedy is the debasement of the English language and its inexhaustible variety by a film like this.
Just a few ways to describe this incredibly over-hyped movie. I sat down with some friends expecting to see a good film, hoping I’d get the Scorcese who directed Goodfellas and not the Scorcese who directed The Colour of Money. Well after sitting through hours of this sleep-inducing cypher of a film, I realised [sic] I had got something much worse. I still don’t understand what all the fuss is about. The plot is pretty simple – supposedly about a great but flawed boxer, it’s really about a selfish bum who cheats on his wife, knocks his girlfriend around, beats up his brother, then fades from whatever “glory” he once had into a life of pot-bellied obscurity. Whopee, just what the world needs – another film about a selfish, greedy, stupid *loser*.
Why do I hate this film so much? I hate the characters, none of whom have any redeeming features whatsoever. I hate the artificial and pretentious black & white. I hate the ludicrous boxing scenes. I hate the moronic and self-indulgent religious imagery. So Scorcese is a devout catholic? Well the Pope is too but does that make this a good film? I think not.
I really can’t believe everyone has given this film 5 stars. Looks like another case of “oh, all the critics like it, so it must be a great movie”. “I coulda been a contender,” laments the lead character at the end of the film. Sure buddy, and Porky Pig coulda learned to fly. Exploiting this line from a *genuine* classic is just the last straw.
The final verdict? Watching this film the cinematic equivalent of wading through a cesspit. That said, if you’re suffering from insomnia, I think I might just have found a cure…
Yet another exampled of a ‘great’ movie that is highly overrated.
La Motta was a jerk. Plain and simple.
The movie is well recorded, but that is it.
If you know why this is a ‘great’ movie, please email me and let me know.
I’m a boxing fan and train often but I have no idea why people like this movie. It’s a story about a cocky, arrogant jerk who likes to abuse the people around him both mentally and physically. Most of the movie is of him degrading women, screaming profanities to them and hitting them. In one scene he beats his own brother badly in a jealous rage, stomping him and then slugs his own 20 year old wife. The only thing I learned from this movie is that Jake Lamotta was one horrible person. This movie does nothing for boxing.
Lousy movie. Almost as bad as Lost in Space. I found it very amateurish – particularly the unsubtle operatic opening – and sunk with the weight of its own pretensions. I was a big De Niro fan after Godfather 2 and he’s probably the only interesting thing about this movie. But I couldn’t stand the little guy who swears a lot. Watching this movie was like being hit in the head repeatedly with a sock full of vomit. If it’s a good boxing movie you’re after try Fat City. Guaranteed no pretensions. And no overeating.